


for what i have tamed

by generalguideline



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Age Difference, Coming of Age, Consequences, Domestic Fluff, Kid Fic, M/M, Magical Accidents, Pseudo-Incest, guilt and shame, no easy way out
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-03
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2017-12-07 09:13:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/746814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/generalguideline/pseuds/generalguideline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anders is turned into a child and there is no way back to his adult self, and every day he stays a child he forgets more about who he was.  With no one in corrupt Kirkwall to be trusted to raise a mage to understand the appropriate use and restraint of the inevitable magics, Fenris tries to take responsibility for young Anders in a city which does not make single parenthood for a violent and hunted mercenary with mage issues easy.  </p><p>(Note: no underage slash.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a [kinkmeme prompt](http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/9730.html?thread=39609346#t39609346).

Later the whole affair would be called the Second Qunari Invasion of Kirkwall. 

At the time, Fenris thought of the massacre, abductions, siege, murders, executions and ensuing disruption of the Kirkwall _stadias quotus tem_ in terms less suited to the history books. The Templar injunction of martial law closed sharp as a trap on Kirkwall after events at the Viscount's keep, the sudden influx of uncountable numbers of shining new Templars from Orlais and the surrounding city-states (to re-affirm to a fearful public the position, strength and stability of the Chantry against the possible retaliation of the heathen Qunari — _ha!_ Fenris thought sourly on hearing the Knight Commander's statement read during Chantry service) coincidentally ending the reign of Kirkwall's many semi-legal, mostly illegal gangs. 

Displaced from the only position he had been able to earn over the last year which neither insulted his pride or put him in too much daily danger, namely the training of Meeran's Red Irons from thugs to slightly more skilled thugs, Fenris was pissed enough to spit. Almost immediately after the salivary display, though, his core philosophical bent reestablished itself, and he listened to his comrade's continued speculation and divulgence with mild manner. The end of illegal activity, he learned, had left Meeran in a position of considerable debt, while the larger and more economically stable of Kirkwall's gangs were pressing everyone for immediate repayment of _all_ debts, what with their actions over the foreseeable future utterly crimped by Templar style. 

'I warned Meeran he was overextending. The Coterie have interests in other cities, the local chapter has support—' Fenris lifted his chin at his comrade's slow headshake, quizzical. 'You believe Meeran will sell our interests to clear his debt, do you? With luck, it might not affect us, one master to the next. Depending on who he sells his interests to first, the Coterie or the Carta.'

'He will not sell,' Maraas said; he was not sure if this made him happy or otherwise. The Tal-Vashoth had found no companions in Meeran's Red Irons he was willing to tolerate beyond Fenris. 'He will declare his legal business bankrupt and leave the city. That is what I hear. This will leave us in a precarious position. Few others will deign to hire either of us.' 

'Well, _I_ can't afford the Coterie's tithe. The rental prices here are exorbitant, and I am tired of working like a dog to fund some noble landlord's excessive lifestyle. Nor do I wish to ever be in Meeran's position.' A grim smile. 'Not in this economy.'

'To reside in the alienage is a small portion of such costs.'

'And you believe the boy would do well there? He still barely speaks. You remember Feynriel, the shunning he suffered. And at least _he_ looked somewhat like an elven halfblood.'

'I do not believe they would turn you away irrespective of the child's parentage.'

A violent wrinkling of the nose, as if having bitten an olive. 'Ah, yes. Let me work like a dog protecting those cowering rats instead. No, they would not turn me away. Not until they had broken me in the impossible task of defending _their_ indefensible, worthless position. Better the ridiculous rent market than an alienage, thank you.'

Then Fenris rolled his eyes, a hyperbole to soften the rancour. Maraas relaxed.

Despite himself, Maraas often conceived of his and the elf's parallel if recent history as a friendship. The term was new to him since arriving in Kirkwall and finding himself lost of certainty. For Fenris, Maraas suspected, the opposite had occurred, the corrupted slave adrift in Thedas only to find and win a fragile balance in a city of corruption so intense it was almost pure, honest. Out of this confused sense of kinship, Maraas had conspired to advance the bad news regarding Meeran's precipitous departure in the Hanged Man, over a tepid brew much watered down for the city's closed harbour and interrupted industry. The smell of sweat and panic from the Qunari siege still filled the place, alcohol insufficient to clear the stench. Yet it was not as bad as it could have been, as Maraas neither drank nor panicked, but found instead a comfort in proximity with one he thought of as his equal.

Lost in thought, Fenris shifted or rocked on the chair every few seconds, the wood squeaking. He shook his head at last, settled his feet again to the floor, incongruously bare and brown beneath the dull greaves. 

'What will you do?' Maraas asked.

Fenris gave a Tevinter shrug, straightening against the weight on his shoulders. 'What can be done? I will return my services to the market, limited though it is these days. Perhaps I will need to work for the Templars. I have had enough of starving.' 

'You will have success in your venture, whatever the path,' Maraas said out of politeness; of those who knew him, half of Kirkwall _hated_ Fenris, the other half was terrified of him. 'Your reputation precedes you. But I do not believe I will have as much luck in this...atmosphere.'

Sympathy; Fenris had been there three days prior to hustle Maraas hastily into the market while in the alley behind them a lone Tal-Vashoth had been brutally, horribly lynched by a mob of Hightowners ranging into Lowtown in vengeance, the city guard standing in the shadows with a genial eye to the highspirited youngsters lest they harm themselves on their mothers' inappropriately sharpened dinner knives. 'You could always marry a Kirkwaller. No better way to show your allegiances to the Qun completely severed than a full Chantry ceremony.'

As Fenris often did, Maraas let his expression communicate for him. The elf huffed an almost laugh.

'I have enjoyed working with you, while it lasted.' An easy lie on Fenris' part, who had always made clear his hatred of being employed at all, after what Maraas speculated had been a life of relative luxury as a highly privileged, if often humiliated slave, that historical Fenris seemingly having known his place with a fervour Maraas had only ever encountered amongst those most dedicated to the Qun. But Maraas knew from proprinquity that Fenris' idea of comforting another had always been to take the discomfort on himself. Fenris' ease with lies were but a part of the elf's unexpected generosity of spirit. 'You're an experienced man, an experienced fighter. Surely you have some contacts for work?'

'If they do not wish to send me in to impossible situations to die before their better, more human and Chantry faithful bodies. If I may trust that one who hires a mercenary who is nothing does not believe that mercenary's life is worth nothing.' 

A heartbeat too slow to appear natural, Fenris touched Maraas on the shoulder in apparent friendship. He finished his drink in a single swallow, grimacing. 'I must go. If I hear of a suitable hire advertised, I will find you.'

Maraas spoke quickly before Fenris could retreat. 'Will you contact Hawke again?' 

The spine compressed, shoulders curling. Maraas waited.

'I...do not believe so. When you speak of being used as blood to slick another's step...Hawke's actions towards me never led me to believe she ever thought of me otherwise.'

'Should you die, the boy is old enough now to care for himself, by the Qun and by any mandate of human or elven youth, I believe.'

The eyebrows writhed beneath the fold of scarf. 'He's six. Or as near to it as I can tell.'

'He knows to find water, shelter and food,' Maraas concurred.

Fenris shook his head. 'And as for sheltering the youthful spirit?'

'Yet I recall Hawke's business was lucrative. One or two ventures and the issues of water, shelter and food will surrender to the tending of the spirit.'

'But I will not surrender to her needs before mine own again. Unless...Maraas, do you seek a recommendation? Has all this has been because you wish me to ask Hawke if she is in need of a tame Tal-Vashoth in my humble body's stead?'

There were times that Kirkwall idiom still left Maraas puzzling. 'You would place a good word for me with one who executed the Arishok not six days past?'

The mirthless grin softened into something else. 'If you so wanted, my friend. Hawke is honourable by her own account, at least.'

'Perhaps when I am desperate,' Maraas conceded. 'Hawke is not lightly approached.'

The sudden mottled flush on Fenris' cheeks was certainly more complicated than anger, Maraas thought.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I shall add that chapters will not necessarily be in any chronological or linear order.

The child tried to stab him. Fenris clung sufficiently to sanity to not retaliate beyond the amount which he had, dimming his brands. The too-familiar amber eyes were bright with unshed tears, the hand which Fenris had disarmed with the abruptness of habit bright red and clutched to the chest. But still no sound.

Fenris sat up fully, and regretted it when his head roared fit to resound out of his mouth. He clenched his teeth, covered his eyes.

The world continued to reel. Through stinging eyes, he saw it was the bedroom he called his, the yawning roof, the fitful mattress. The child with thin, feather soft hair and eyebrows so pale they were almost non-existant, in a shirt which had fit the elder counterpart sliding from scanty shoulders and stockings puddled around ankles like a bird's, all other aspects of the garb having been lost along the way.

The way. Fenris could recall, distantly. He had been angry that Hawke sent the mage to him, with instructions to catalogue the relics still scattered around the mansion either for sale or for use. The Amell crest had been easy enough to reinstate with the Viscount's reluctant support (a Dumar, he had been hesitant to return any power to a family which had once held the Viscount's throne not a generation prior), but the decades of backlogged taxes against the Amell Estate had scarcely been dented by the expedition's proceeds. Reduction of which taxes the Viscount had been most pleased not to facilitate, calling in their due at intervals which correlated with the financial year's dispersment of funds across the city. 

Anger. His anger, at Anders for simply being present, at Hawke, for thinking what remained within the magister's mansion was hers; had Fenris not given her leeway to loot to her heart's content in payment, those years past? What remained was his by squatter's rights. The frustrated battle trying to close every chest Anders opened, slamming every cupboard door the mage turned his hand to, until the mage shoved him, a physical response from a mage startling enough Fenris had not foiled it; except Anders fought with an apostate's dirty tricks, augmenting the slap of his palm with a mental blast, the motion and force coming in such smooth unison it appeared the mage would pack a decent punch in a pub brawl if cornered, all without having to expose himself. Even as Fenris had noted and, begrudgingly, admired the tactic of a terminal rat backed into every corner the world could form, he flew and struck. 

A rotting wall giving way beneath his weight. Hurt. Blurred with blackness. Anders healed him, anxious eyes, then suddenly scornful when Fenris sat up and vomited. Curt response to a cracked skull. Fragments from then on, sitting groggily as Anders rummaged through the newly exposed chamber, lifting charm after charm—

No. Fenris remembered. The shape of it, the horn of a beast which did not walk this world, full of something which would not spill, could not be drunk, but which was clearly a liquid. He had been agitated but still dazed, enough that Anders had rolled his eyes and put down the charm. Fenris saw his own fingers wrap around it, careful with his gauntlets. 

It was not Tevinter. The shape of it came hung with memories instead of Seheron, humid and aching. But not the Fog Warriors, hung about with guilt as those memories were. No; this was from before. Powerful magic, enough to remake a life, but as with all remakings it would be as flawed as its maker. He remembered the warning, but not what ensued, who had given it, where had had been.

Remembering a bitter curl from those antagonistic lips when Fenris tried to impart the same warning. Anders wrenching the charm from fingers which did not want to grip, examining the impossible fluid. The ensuing struggle, when Fenris reclaimed the horn, more bitter words thrown between them.

Miasma of magic thick and foreign around them, nothing Tevinter, nothing even of blood magic; even in recall he felt ill again. Anders had mocked, spouting scorn while Fenris tried to struggle up the stairs to his bed, where there were potions, remedies, anything to cease the sickening hammer inside his skull. Anders kept digging through the discovered room's relics. Fenris slept.

Only to wake to this child trying to stab him.

There was no question, not even on second glance. Fenris' instinctive understanding on waking had been to _know_. Closer examination removed all doubt. The shirt, the eyes, the sulky mouth and ruddy cheeks. The little fingers clenched and unfurled, eyes flicking to where the dagger had spun and landed, sparking across the stone. The stockings tripped the child when he tried to run, rolling with a lack of grace but also lack of care, rising with bloodied knees and palms, then bare feet slapping on the stone until he had reclaimed the dagger, his gasps echoing around the room.

Fenris rubbed his temples, licked his lips. The child positioned himself neatly between wardrobe and wall, crouching, blade held to the fore. Fenris was not so familiar with children, but wherever the magic had taken him, Anders could not be more than eight. Perhaps younger, from the lack of control in his motions; there had been Anderfels children frequently in the slave markets, always taller than the rest of their age group. 

'Anders,' Fenris tried. But the child did not respond, and Fenris did not know and had never asked what the mage's actual name had been. 'I warned you. Did I not warn you? Powerful magics are not toys.'

Yet he had squabbled with Anders like a child, tugging the charm back and forth between them as if it was a toy, the mouldering leather cord straining between angry fingers. When it snapped, Fenris had stomped on the horn to keep it from the mage's grasp, the form cracking.

His trepidation solidified.

'Do not go anywhere, mage.'

Outside the bedroom, Fenris settled a portion of balustrade against the door, where hopefully the fall of wood would alert him if the child tried to escape before Fenris could— could what? Correct this? The door latch was likely out of the boy's reach, but the notional alarm idea did much to ease Fenris. Then he went as quickly as he could to that mouldering room they had discovered the day prior. 

The damaged wall correlated with his stretched memory, being a wall in the grand hall with plaster scattered and rotten studs arching around his impact. Fenris pushed through — into a room which he had seen many times before, being the empty bedroom on the counterside of the wall. The bed even bore the imprint of the mage's body where he had evidently decided to spend the night uninvited instead of trying the dangers of the night streets. Stray hair straggled across the pillow, the remainder of his clothing sagging fitfully on the outside of the dusty coverlets, where the mage had obviously not felt welcomed enough to try sleeping beneath.

Fenris stood beside the hole, heart hammering. 

He leaned very carefully through it, head into the great hall, examining the edges, in case the hidden room were much more narrow than his damaged head told him it was. Nothing, but some fragments filling the cavity between the two leaves of plaster.

Fenris knew this mansion, every wall paced out, distances memorised sufficient to flee in total blindness, if necessary; he had discovered hidden rooms by determining mismatched pacing before. His system of remembering the numbers of steps and locations took the form of a thin line sketch which existed only in his mind, the crosspoint of the lines carrying with them an associated number. He unfurled his mental map and promptly recalled those memorised steps which corresponded with this area. No hidden rooms here. But...he could have made a mistake. In a mental system which had proved infallible over eight years of performing as sole trusted security for a magister who had so many mansions, estates and apartments in a constant cycle of sale and acquisition he had shifted his place of residence with as much ease and frequency as changing his robes.

Fenris did not think he was mistaken.

Perhaps the mage had morphed into his abomination self and thrown Fenris through multiple walls? Certainly the paper-thin drywall here did not suggest a cracked skull of a magnitude for the lingering headache Fenris suffered even now, after healing. 

He ran through the three levels of the house, minus his bedroom level on the highest mezzanine, on a full circuit patrol. He counted as he went, finding no dimensions had changed or shifted to explain the inexplicable. Nor did any other scenes of destruction await discovery, to ease his anxiety.

Finally, as he was about to give up, a quiet clattering of wood occurred. Fenris raced back to the grand hall, stopping at the bottom of the stairs which descended to the right, as Anders was hopping step by step. The child froze when he saw Fenris at the base, then turned and climbed what he had just descended, his breath hitching painfully sharp. A patter of feet across the landing with the head not of a height sufficient to show over the balustrade, to the flight of stairs which descended instead to the left side of the hall.

Fenris crossed to the left side of the hall and waited at the foot of those stairs, fists clenched at his sides. The thwarted rage on Anders' tiny face, oddly, disarmed much of Fenris' anxiety. It was a familiar expression.

The knock on the foyer door echoed through the space, both Fenris and Anders turning their heads sharply to the source. They looked at each other again.

Anders' whole body shook, Fenris saw, chest heaving like a billowing sheet beneath the too-large shirt. Without a word, Anders crouched and tugged himself behind the thick corner post of the balustrade, hunching in to himself like a crab, ready to snap at anyone who poked.

Fortuitously, it was sufficient hiding. Fenris faced Hawke when she entered with the lack of deference which characterised her more truly than her apparent diplomacy, the clink of metal from the foyer telling him she had not come alone. She had not been alone with him since that mistake of an evening, when she had sent him quite briskly on his way, aghast with embarrassment on his behalf.

'Where is he?'

No preamble. Fenris swallowed. 'Who?'

'Anders.'

'You come to me about the mage? I presume he is in his clinic, or on one of his foolish missions—'

Hawke stopped him with a raised palm, the diplomatic mask slipping. She looked wretchedly weary, Fenris saw, still dirty with coastal dust. 'I intended to come with him here, today, to assist with clearing out further of the dangerous relics in this place. We heard word of a gang attempting to rival the old Band of Three for recovery of relics through Hightown and I did not wish you to be alone should they decide to strike here. He sent me a note yesterday, that he was coming.'

'I know nothing of this. Why would he claim to come here alone, Hawke? I would not have been inclined to let him beyond my front door.'

'I know that!' A breath, where Hawke smoothed the ragged tone. Fenris felt the crackle of magic, while his lyrium itched correspondingly, longing to light. 'A misinterpretation on his part of my intentions, it seems. I came as soon as I could, but I only returned to the city this morning...'

'I have not seen the old mage today,' Fenris said, somewhat truthfully.

Hawke's eyes narrowed. 'There is a new hole in your old wall.'

The crackle of magic this time was thick enough to feel like a spell. Helplessly, Fenris flared in response, just for a heartbeat before he recovered his control. Hawke held just as suddenly a sphere of magic, _in potentia_ , the decision on a spell waiting to coalesce.

It enraged Fenris. 'And so you honestly threaten me now? When you come in here making accusations of which source I am unaware, bleeding unnecessary magic to entice me to fear?'

A shudder. When Hawke looked up the features were drawn, as if by a crude hand, the blaring edges of the uneven ball of potential in her grasp smoothing. But the magic did not dissipate. 'I am sorry. But you only respond as you did when you are on edge. Why are you so nervous?'

'I am not nervous.'

'There's blood in your hair.'

'I fell,' Fenris pointed, for emphasis. 'Through the wall.' 

'You and he are not friends, and I fear—'

'You and I are not friends,' Fenris interrupted, as coolly as he could. 'But I would not kill you for breaking through my front door, or for attempting to bait me with your excess of magics. Anders likewise has nothing to fear from me unless he struck me first or proved himself irredeemable to the demon within.'

'I'm not sure I trust you not to provoke him.'

That stung bitterly: had Fenris not been the one who always, always avoided engaging the mage? He had never started a conversation with Anders to date. It was always the mage who tried to _provoke _him. Now it was _Hawke_ who had tried twice even this morning to provoke him. Who had flirted with him incessantly once, only to tell him it had been a mistake. Never since then had she dared see him alone, as if fearing some retaliation. As if he were a beast, as if he had not gone when she bade him _go_.__

__'I may not be safe, but neither am I a thoroughly reckless killer of unwanted guests. You will not find him here.'_ _

__'I'm not so sure about that.'_ _

__'I am grateful for yet another vote of confidence, Hawke.'_ _

__'Anders!'_ _

__Fenris had been waiting for it. The loud shout did not make him flinch. Hawke sucked in a deeper breath and called for the mage again._ _

__In the ringing silence which followed, at last, the crackle of Hawke's magic eased. Her suspicion did not. 'I'll keep looking for him.'_ _

__'I resent this visit, Hawke. I am not a mindless murderer, whatever you may believe after Hadriana. Nor have I ever wished Anders such grievous harm. Only that he would learn to be less of a fool with understanding what power he has.'_ _

__The words had a hint of an echo, as if he had heard them before. Fenris paled and cooled all at once, his sense of perspective distorted to put Hawke's wary squint at a yawning distance. Such a distance it took long moments before he realised Hawke had retreated, perhaps with some platitude to which he had responded, as well trained as he was in platitudinous inquiry._ _

__Fenris took an unsteady step to the left-hand stair._ _

__Liquid. Dripping dark on the dusty wood, only a stair or two from the top. Fenris took the stairs three at a time to the thick corner post, where Anders had his eyes tightly closed, arms and legs gripping around the post tightly. The puddle had soaked through his shirt between the legs. The pathetic little figure, with his bloody palms and elbows, one wrist bruised black from Fenris' earlier instinctive disarm, the scrawny knees missing vast patches of skin. Imagine the catalogue of wounding after a whole day of childhood; Fenris could not._ _

__'Anders,' Fenris tried._ _

__The child whispered, a high, piping voice which disconcerted Fenris almost as much as the word. _'Magister!_ '_ _

__There was a slant, a lilt which made the usual emphasis foreign and thick. A title Tevinter in origin, adopted by every nation ever plagued by such._ _

__'There is no magister,' Fenris tried._ _

__The child only embraced his post the tighter._ _

__Fenris sorted his memories again, dug through the catcalls of the Minrathous slave pens, picturing the thick, strong, blonde bodies: he found a mocking context for the necessary words, being a rebellion with a hapless slaver lord's neck crushed beneath an Anders slave's bare foot, toes flexing with triumph._ _

__' _Giet keinon magister_.'_ _

__Anders snapped opened his eyes, if only to glare. Snaking, uncertain glances were taken of the hall and its duly reported absence of magisters. The lip curled, again quiveringly familiar of the elder being. Then Fenris saw a wave of blankness through those eyes, dilating the pupils hugely, as the child's dominant fear reasserted itself._ _

__'Stop crying. It hardly becomes you, mage.' The head flailed, forehead striking against wood as if seeking unconsciousness to escape. 'No. No! Stop that—'_ _

__Fenris went to insert his hand between the head and its solid terminus, only to remember his gauntlet (and how often had he scratched himself bloody going to sleep when forgetting to remove them?). The child hardly needed to lose an eye atop its other injuries; Fenris removed it as quickly as he could, only three violent headbutts later, Anders startling when the fourth was cushioned by Fenris' palm._ _

__'Better. Now, will you come?' He held out his bare hand, skin still being somewhat startled at how warm and weighty Anders' skull had been, while this offering was met with the child's turbulent disbelief. 'It is not dignified, sitting in your own fear. Or anyone else's fear.'_ _

__The fear, the turmoil, the foiled attempt at morning murder had seemingly exhausted what reserves of trust the twiglike thing held. Fenris prised the arms and legs from the post, each one he released to loosen the next latching back around quickly, leading him to gripping the sodden waist and pulling while cringing at how _breakable_ the body felt, and thinking mournfully of Isabela and a more pleasant evening on the Wounded Coast, prying open the shells of mussels. _ _

__He carried Anders to the well in the central courtyard, at arms' length, the child now as maliciously limp in every direction as a dripping rag and vastly more difficult to hold._ _


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Making up the Anderfels language, don't bother trying to look it up. So far:
> 
> giet keinon magister - (literally) "none there magister" (there is no magister)  
> bab movle - equivalent in tone and phrasing to "poor little wee babbie"  
> matka - baby speak for mother (mummy/mam)  
> giet movle - (i'm) not (a) baby  
> projshe - "formally request" (as opposed to preyje, which would have been "kindly do as instructed")  
> matka un bab movle - (in baby speak) "mummy and poor wee little babbie"

Tomwise suggested contacting Athenril, who, demonstrating no hard feelings for Fenris’ stunt pulled with her valued contact Anso, suggested Brigga of Meeran’s Red Irons, currently on R&R in the _Toothy Clam_. Fenris wondered if he had perhaps assumed no hard feelings too soon, though it was debatable against whom Athenril bore the grudge, as Brigga narrowly avoided having his arm ripped off when he decided to take Fenris’ armour and sword as roleplay. Arse stinging from the blow he’d scarcely been able to avoid, Fenris gritted his teeth and finally managed to make himself heard over the mercenary jeers, sidestepping a stray prostitute’s languid attempt to comfort.

‘And what does a fetish elf want of my wife?’ Brigga stood, those masses of braids thick as rope uncoiling over his shoulders. The taproom’s mood suddenly shifted as Brigga did; obviously he was someone well known, either well liked or feared amongst Meeran’s men.

It was an impressive axe, Fenris would agree, no more so than the shoulders the haft was propped across. He would not have been at all inclined to question if it was compensating for something else; everyone knew the unfortunate truth about Anderfels men.

‘Your mother is likely unavailable,’ Fenris began, and belatedly realised his mistake.

Ten minutes later — and even the best of brawls rarely lasted longer — Brigga finally relented sufficient enough to hear the full request, hauling Fenris outside with him to avoid the clean-up attempt internally, and the publican’s instance on pinning blame and demanding recompense.

‘How old, you say?’

‘I’m not certain. He appears five. Perhaps six.’

‘ _Bab movle_ ,’ the big man groaned, shaking his head. ‘Why did you not say this first, elf? Starting all this for nothing. Not the most articulate of mouths I have known. But, us with the weapons, we do not need to be.’

Fenris couldn’t help himself, shaking someone else’s blood from his knuckles with grim definition. ‘So it’s a weapon now, _Anders_ , and not a prop?’ More a descriptor than a slur without usual prejudice behind it, nevertheless the ubiquitous label rolled off Fenris’ tongue awkwardly; too many years using it as a name. Not that every single Anders slave in the Imperium had even been given more name that that, men and women both.

Humming, Brigga took the question seriously. ‘Perhaps better to say this is the weapon.’ He took the opportunity of indicating Fenris’ full length of form to leer horrifyingly, but did not touch. ‘Now, _bab movle_ , how did he come to be? In Kirkwall, that being, as I assume the rest of his creation followed the usual path.’

Wincing inwardly, for Brigga could not have been more wrong. ‘A slaver’s ship, from the, uh, shackles I took from him. But he does not appear otherwise harmed and I gave him a shirt to wear. I cannot speak to him to calm him or discover further.’

‘But there are no slaver ships in port,’ Brigga said, with unfortunate perspicacity. ‘None even hiding as merchants of Tevine staples. Did one _movle_ stumble across inland, him but so small? Certainly he would have died.’

Fenris rubbed his eyes. ‘If I knew, I would tell you. Perhaps it was merely a misadventure with someone else’s _fetish_.’

Brigga spat, eyes flaring. ‘This Meeran, who has my contract. He balks not at working for slavers for moral reasoning, but instead because they value life lower than he does. Dogs.’

‘Dogs,’ Fenris agreed, vaguely.

Brigga led Fenris through the Lowtown hexes, up and down several flights of stairs which appeared to exist simply to avoid the industrial slime still pumping out of Darktown; the destination appeared to be a sharply angled and precariously located niche abandoned at some point in Kirkwall’s lurid history, fitted out as a residence with a bed, a barrel of water and a hanging strip of cloth for a door, made thick with wool knotted and woven in a deliberate, skilled pattern. Unkindly, Fenris thought, as a choice of abode it would put anyone prone to inadvertent sneezes during sleep at great risk of dropping right off. 

A haggard woman sat on the bed, fingers working at making more woolen knots. Fenris noted the crutches within reach, the water, the chipped ceramic pot tucked beneath the bed. When Brigga beckoned him in, the old woman looked up, startled and afraid; Fenris’ silhouette surely had not been shaped to put comfort in anyone’s heart. For a moment Fenris felt ashamed.

Then the eyes narrowed, the mouth drew itself into an angry line, and the torrent began, clusters of hard sounds fired at Brigga far too fast for Fenris’ scattered collection of Thedosian vocabularies. Brigga returned as good as he got, it seemed, though the big man’s shoulders hunched further inwards, which triggered without reason the realisation that the woman, clearly much older, was Brigga’s wife. The hand gestures told as much of the story as the worlds, Fenris suspected, Brigga thrusting at Fenris, then _hands off, I didn’t touch him!_ ; Brigga made a shape as if holding a child, another shape for _small_ , shrugged wildly in denial of any further knowledge, then held out a double handful of his braid at his wife, who tugged her own fistful of grey back at him and thrust her tongue to make her lower lip bulge, froglike, at his words. Then, as abruptly as it had started, the argument ceased. 

Fenris found himself the subject of dual stares. 

‘I am Ksenia. The infant is yours?’

‘No. He is Anders, I merely...found him. He does not want to speak to me — does not appear to speak anything but Anders.’

‘My husband says he is needing clothing.’ A scattered spill of commands, Brigga moving to a chest by the fire pit. Clothes, for a small human, laundered and embroidered and with dried petals spilling from the seams. Fenris tried not to look; Ksenia’s eyes never left his. ‘Why you not bring him here?’

‘He...does not trust me. I could not carry him, not and look suspicious. Nor did I wish him to come to harm if he ran from me.’

‘He is a mage,’ Ksenia said.

Brigga, clutching the little boy’s loved clothes to his leather clad chest, hissed warningly, then snapped a curt instruction through the unpleasant grin. Ksenia’s glare grew defensive.

‘Forget,’ she instructed Fenris. ‘I did not speak this, I mean no insult. But where is the boy, I cannot come to him if he is far. This is literal statement, not laziness.’ She pointed at her crutches.

‘Hightown—’

Now Brigga and Ksenia grew scornful. ‘Hightown!’ Brigga spat off the ledge, ‘Pfaah! Much too far. There will be questions if I go through that place. Ask your master for help, not us, with so little to give.’

The resentment of those for their peers who had escaped their lot. Familiar with it intimately from years as a favoured slave, the scorn brought back sharp memories, which Fenris suppressed. He wondered suddenly how Hawke had escaped it. Or if indeed she had. ‘I have no master. I live on my own.’

‘In Hightown? You either liar or gang,’ Ksenia stopped and corrected herself, the trade common pronouns slotting into place, ‘a fighter in a gang. Or prostitute.’ Ksenia flicked her fingers at him. ‘I will not walk to Hightown.’

‘And if I bring him here? Will you help?’

‘For Anders boy, always. A sovereign.’

‘For a month.’

‘Month?’ Ksenia smiled, which transformed her whole face; someone who had laughed a lot, once. ‘Hightown elf affords sovereign a _day_.’

Outraged, Fenris engaged her in earnest, and once having proved himself no fop Ksenia allowed the bartering to rapidly drop into a reasonable range, settling on eighty silvers a week for her hospitality and linguistic services plus provision of sufficient food to deal with the _bab movle_ ’s appetite, which Ksenia warned him would be prodigious. If most of that went on maintaining the meat of Brigga’s muscle, having seen what the mercenary did with his spare coin (fetish elf, _bah_ ,) Fenris suddenly lost the urge to argue over the cost of potatoes.

The clothing, unexpectedly, Ksenia ceded to him for no cost, though she stroked the fabric with shaking fingers before thrusting the small pile of Brigga’s selection at him. Then she was up on her crutches, wool weaving spilling from her lap, to see him through the excuse for a door with grand hospitality. The injury which had crippled her suddenly apparent. 

‘The elf stares,’ Brigga said, a low rumbled warning. ‘The elf does not stare at my wife.’ 

Fenris pulled his gaze away. ‘I apologise. You are...a brave woman.’ 

‘Brave,’ Brigga said, the tone suddenly swelling. Pride and bitterness both. ‘We are _Anders_. Proudest and strongest nation. Living in this...’ the piercing gaze over the high ledge judging all Lowtown, the stinks and steam, the poxy walls. ‘Rubbish.’ 

‘As if Blighted lands were better? Perhaps you should never have left.’ It slipped out before Fenris could think, but Brigga only snuffed a laugh, the incoming slap shifting to Fenris’ shoulder a split second after Fenris had been sure it would go for his arse. 

Ksenia snapped her hands at him. ‘Too much talking, men. Go, elf, get our lost boy. I wish to meet.’ 

Which required that he return to Hightown. Fenris had almost enjoyed the day of chasing around the city for appropriate services; his steps lagged until he stood motionless in the street before his so-called residence, contemplating the cracked door glumly. Since the _incident_ — a word coined from Aveline’s impersonal guard vocabulary, it served to distance him from the horror and sense of doom which occasionally sought to overwhelm — it had been a miserable two days of trying to hold Anders down long enough to eat, to drink, to stop trying to kill him. Fenris’ moments of sleep were always to give Anders the time to untie the rope around his ankle and run, which meant the early mornings had been consumed with searching the house from top to bottom before finding where the boy had hidden himself, disarming him — kitchen knives, daggers, stones, what appeared to be a necklace knotted into a garrotte, of all things. Then the _filth_. Fenris took him off several more times for a sluicing, for Anders would either wet himself or puddle in an inadvertent corner, and that was without the snot he seemed completely unaware of. Even the sight of the well now set Anders to intensifying his fight against Fenris’ carrying power, leading to bitten ears, gouged eyes, an elbowed throat, and several startlingly well aimed punches to the groin. If he had even been a few years older Fenris doubted himself capable of restraining the battling body. 

In the moments when Anders’ hysteria tired itself out, the boy huddled and holding himself, he did not speak. The few Anders words Fenris did speak served only to make the boy flinch. There were times when the knowingness in those eyes assured Fenris that Anders was in there, somewhere, that Anders knew; the rest of the time it was a hysterical, lost and terrified boy who stared at a strange, spiky elf and sometimes whispered for his _matka_. 

Yet the one time Anders had made it through the lobby, Fenris momentarily undone, the boy had taken six steps into Hightown, stopped, and fled back into the mansion with an expression of utter terror and confusion on his face. The boy had seemingly fainted after that, or at least gone catatonic; it had been then Fenris decided that shouting at Anders to stop being a fool was less likely to achieve success than any other a method. It had been a denial of Anders’ current state as carefully constructed as any around Fenris’ life; chagrin and sorrow to realise he could not fix this simply, strengthening resolve. 

The boy was awake and still staring vaguely when Fenris squatted in front of him, holding out the offering of clothes. Anders came too slowly, flinching back when he saw Fenris; he pointed accusingly at the ankle rubbed raw from the rope Fenris had used, this time the knot having worked. Fibres under bloody, baby fingernails, and blood at the corner of that child mouth, too, as if Anders had tried to chew through the cord. 

Fenris felt likewise pained and irritated and powerfully, sorrowfully _incapable_. ‘If you weren’t such a fool I wouldn’t have needed to do that.’ 

Anders simply blinked, suspicious and radiating hate. He tugged the overlarge, now solidly soiled shirt over his knees and hugged himself into the corner. 

‘I have something for you. Something better for your dignity. Here.’ 

The clothes were regarded with as much suspicion, but Anders inched forward and sifted through the pile. The unguarded expression opened like a window when Anders found what appeared to be full length breeches, which were clutched to his chest in a hug. The eyes flitted to Fenris, the embrace tightening, as if sure Fenris would take them away, but the expression was more hopeful than hostile. 

Startled by the lack of hostility more than anything, Fenris found himself stirring through the clothing as well. Many of the garments were richly made and layered, with laces and frills, flared kilts and high, small stockings. The sole pair of soft cloth boots, folded with their laces tucked in, stalled him for a reason he could not determine. The leather soles were not thick, not worn. 

Fenris finished the rest of the selection, watched carefully by Anders, and pushed the pile over. The boy’s nose unexpectedly wrinkled; he turned away, nose high, still tangled with breeches. 

The posture infuriated Fenris. ‘What is it, my lord? The colour selection insufficient to your tastes? Perhaps the lack of feathers? Dress yourself, then!’ Fenris flung the clothing wholesale into Anders’ face. 

Stalking to the window, Fenris saw nothing, angry, guilty thoughts chasing each other in circles. This was not Fenris’ fault, of course not, it was the mage’s fault, for poking around where he was not wanted, for mocking the power in artefacts and mishandling what he found. But if it wasn’t Fenris’ fault, why had he lied to Hawke, so smoothly he hardly knew he was doing it? Surely a child Anders would have done better in her hands than his. 

But a mage Anders raised by an apostate...one who knew no hesitation in using her power to threaten and defend. One who knew no hesitating in using her _power_. A mage so strong she scarcely even thought about the weakness of others. Anders had been bad enough even raised within the Circle knowing himself to be flawed by mortal weakness even while gifted with a Maker’s power. Imagine that ego coddled, retrained, unrestrained— He did not need to imagine it. Fenris had lived it. 

The guilt, and the weird twinge of hope. If he had wished this, used the power of that broken gourd to create this somehow, then it was his fault and it was his responsibility to amend, one way or another. Anders was not Hawke’s responsibility, she who had never thought a mage required watching or even training; nor would Fenris send him off to the Circle, to be raised by a system as flawed as any. Fenris had no trust for the establishment. Which left himself, having been both afflicted by mages and been given the power to his own predestiny by the unlikely actions of one. 

Thoughts now following a path of smug self-assurance — who better to train a mage than he? — It took a while for the sniffing to penetrate. When it did, the crashing doubts returned, Fenris turning warily to the sight of Anders, stark naked, silently crying as he tried to clean himself up from failed attempts at feeding and drinking with a dry patch of shirt before putting on the new clothes. The crashing doubt solidified into despair; train a mage, when he could scarcely even restrain a child? Ha! The hubris, phenomenal. 

The only surety which remained was that Hawke was a danger; even the child Anders seemed to recognise that. _Magister._ At least one path was assured, if only by negation. 

Fenris bent to undo the knot around Anders’ ankle, avoiding the ragged flesh. Once released, he retreated even as Anders did, as quickly as they could, to opposing sides of the room. 

As Fenris watched, Anders spat on the patch of shirt, still crying, and sullenly tried to resume cleaning the blood from his ankles and cobwebs from his hair, from who knew where. When he was done to his own satisfaction, he tried to dress. 

Such careful, uncertain movements, as if the child hardly knew his own body. Fenris was captivated without realising. Little bloody fingers, working with such patience at the buttons on the singlet which slipped and skidded and did not want to button without an adult’s authority. Wriggling into the breeches was easier, but the laces were not, the tears momentarily in frustration. The tunic easiest of all, settled into with a sigh with the head only once moving for an armhole instead of the neck. Only then did Anders realise the stockings should have gone on first, before the breeches, and the realisation seemed to undo him completely. 

Fenris moved before he knew why, stopping the little head beating itself against the nearest surface, feeling an ache in his palm which would bruise. The child’s propensity to self-harm in moments of frustration was alarming enough, even if it hadn’t been as important a part as his skull. The emotions which constituted an aspect of empathy lived in the foremost part of the skull; while he had known little of Tranquility before coming to Kirkwall, he recalled grimly the experiments conducted during one of Danarius’ research phases, slender needles inserted through a live subject’s skull and portions damaged with magic, to determine which quadrants of the brain did what, the behaviours of subjects recorded afterwards. Imagine what emotion would be killed with sufficient quantity of child head bangings on floors. Evidently the emotion which caused one to experience the shame or fear of failure, Fenris suspected, or Anders would not have moved so when experiencing fear or shame. 

Eventually the bruised cushioning of his palm got through to Anders, who ceased his motion and lay as if dead, wet trickling out of his eyes. With the body limp and defeated, Fenris took advantage of the lull, undressed him, put the stockings on, and dressed him again. By then there were sufficient signs of liveliness returning, so Fenris gathered to him the rope, looped it in a makeshift harness around Anders’ chest and shoulders, and held the long end in one hand. 

_Leash_ , he realised, grimly. The horror on Anders’ face, too, nearly made him cut it off there and then. 

‘No,’ Fenris said aloud. ‘I am sorry. Not this time. It is nearly dark and I will not have you endangering either of us in Kirkwall’s streets. When I trust you, then I will be rid of it.’ 

_When he trusts me,_ Fenris thought. 

The child sat abruptly, dignified in his much more suited garb, the stiff tunic providing ample space for his knees. 

‘Please,’ Fenris said. ‘Please. Just come. Please. There is surcease at the end for you. _Projshe_.’ After a moment’s thought, ‘ _matka_.’ 

‘Matka?’ 

If this persisted, Fenris thought, there would be a time when the high child’s voice would cease to startle him. 

‘Matka.’ Something darkly amused in its irritation insisted he add, ‘ _matka un bab movle._ ’ 

An insulted sniff, ‘giet movle,’ but Anders stood, inched forward, plucking at the leash unhappily. 

Not half a minute into Hightown’s dusk, with several odd stares, the child abruptly changed directions and attempted to trip Fenris with the trailing rope, after which Fenris growled, grabbed the wrist and rope both, and kept Anders in rigid lockstep with his own punishing pace. Which only drew more odd stares, and the sauntering presence of a guard interested in the sight of an angry fetish elf with a human child on a rope. 

Fenris picked up the pace and kept going, ignoring the dread he felt at Anders’ clear and open astonishment at their surroundings. 


End file.
